Captain James Hook and the Siege of Neverland Read Online Free Page B

edged weapon.”  
    “And the three horses just waited for him as he cut these men to pieces?” Billy Jukes asked.
    “Two had riders,” Noodler said, now hunched over the ground by the trees.   “They watched.”
    “And the third horse rode on the giant’s back?” Smee asked.   Cecco and Noodler shook their heads.  
    “The horse was as big as the man,” Cecco said.   He shrugged his shoulders and a pained expression wrinkled his face.   “The beast had to have been o’er half a ton.”  
    I bent down to the body closest to me and ran the blade of my hook along the ragged edge of a wound on the man’s throat.   “This man wasn’t cut.”
    Noodler walked over and knelt beside him.   His eyes narrowed as he searched the grass around the body.   “Dogs.”  
    “That fits with the tracks I found o’er here,” Cecco said.
    “I hate dogs,” Smee said.
    “How can you hate dogs?” Starkey asked.
    “You ever fight a dog that was trained to kill, Mr. Starkey?” Smee asked.
    The gentleman shifted his stance, but didn’t answer.  
    “They’re not like men,” Smee said.   “A man can be persuaded with a little pain.   A dog knows only that it must live and you must die.”   The Irishman stared off for a moment, then met Starkey’s eyes.   “I like most dogs, but not dogs like these.   I hate these dogs.”  
    At that, one of the bodies jerked up and grasped Cecco’s ankle.   The Italian howled in surprise and jumped several feet.  
    “Five dead?” I asked.  
    “Four,” Cecco corrected.   “Mi dispiace.”
    “You’re forgiven,” I said, smiling.
    We circled around the man as he clawed deep handfuls of grass.   A gash across his stomach steamed in the now much cooler air.   The back of his armor plating still clung to him even though his breastplate was several feet away.  
    The man’s words came out in gurgles at first.   When he managed to form them, he said something that I didn’t understand.  
    “Mis costillas están rotos.”
    “My ribs are broken,” Cecco said by reflex.   I motioned to Cecco and the olive-skinned Italian leaned in close enough that the fog of the man’s breath broke against his cheek.   The man spoke again and Cecco shook his head.   “He’s not making any sense.”
    “Can you catch any of it?” I asked.
    “That’s not what I mean,” said the Italian.   “He’s saying ‘el gigante verde.’   It’s Spanish.   It means ‘green giant,’ but it’s nonsense.”   The man said more words and Cecco stopped to listen.   When he finished talking, Cecco frowned.   “‘We were attacked by a green giant with red eyes.’   I can’t make out the rest.”
    “He can’t be talking about the boy,” Starkey said.
    “That’s unlikely,” I said.   I knelt down to feel the ragged edges of the man’s broken chest plate.   My fingers traced the outline of two broad punctures and I frowned.   “It couldn’t have been him.”
    “The wounds are too wide,” Noodler said.  
    “And see how the steel is bent here?” I asked.   I held up the chest plate and showed them the inwardly curved neckline.  
    “You’re not saying someone ripped the man’s armor off by hand?” Starkey asked.
    “That is what happened,” I said.   “Look for yourself.”   I handed the chest plate to Starkey.  
    “No man could have done that and neither could the boy,” Starkey said.   “He’s as fast as the devil, but he’s not strong.”
    “Mr. Starkey,” I said in an icy tone, “I would thank you to get into the habit of calling the boy by his name.”
    “Yes, Captain,” Starkey said.   “There is no way this could have been done by Peter Pan.”
    Upon hearing the name, the dying man seized.   Blood flushed his face and he gripped my coat with such strength that he lifted himself off of the ground a few inches.   “Al diablo con ese niño, Peter Pan!”  
    The man released his grasp and slumped dead in the grass.   This time,